I gaped a little before I found my words. “When JJ—When I went to the station after they found her. The police asked me some questions, and they told me then it would take at least a week before the postmortem results—”
“Whatquestions?”
My father was not the kind to raise his voice. He ruled with quiet menace rather than wild temper. But his voice rose now. He stared into my face, only a few inches away, and then he backed off, turned around, and looked out the window, his hands linked behind him.
“I told you,” he said icily, “not to speak toanyone, Miller. But I should have expected no less from you. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you had a lawyer accompany you during the police questioning.”
“OfcourseI didn’t have a lawyer with me!” I spluttered out. “Iwantedto help.”
He turned back, contempt clear in his face. “And so you answered all their questions, despite my explicit instructions not to.”
I was mad then. I wanted to provoke. “Yeah,” I taunted. “I answered all their questions, I gave them a DNA sample, and I told them where the hell to findyou, since you weren’t answering my—”
I was cut off when my father took two quick steps toward me and backhanded me across the face, whipping my head to the side. In the moment after, he seemed to be as shocked as I was at his loss of control. We froze there until I felt a trickle down my cheek, and raised a hand to my face. My fingers touched something wet, and I pulled them away to see red.
His ring, the one that marked him out as a Senior Member of the Academy, the one he’d been gifted for services to motion pictures—it had cut me open.
He’d never hit me before. There were plenty of times I felt like he’dwantedto, but he never had. His usual punishment had been to ignore me, to act as though I were invisible, inaudible. But I was too surprised right then to do anything except stare at him.
He took a breath and then said, “You will be outside, waiting for the car, at ten sharp. Now get out of my sight.”
I stumbled out of the chair and back through the door, then down the long hallway filled with my father’s awards and memorabilia, until I reached my own wing. I was so shaken up that I had to enter the code twice to get in.
In the bathroom, my eye was already puffing up. He’d struck me hard, but not so hard that any bones had broken, I decided, prodding my cheekbone tenderly. It was just cut and bruised. I’d have to wear concealer tomorrow, or sunglasses that would be big enough to cover the mark I knew I was going to have.
I stared at myself in the mirror, my thoughts so tangled up that I couldn’t even tell what emotion I was feeling.
“JJ,” I said, trying to slow my breath. “JJ.” I said his name like a mantra, and then I thought about him, about him kissing me full on the lips not half an hour ago in front of the staff, I thought about how it felt to be wrapped up in him in that saggy-in-the-middle bed of his, I thought of him offering to go pick up my car.
I thought about how it felt having him inside me. About the sureness and solidity of his embrace.
It calmed me down. Calmed me down enough to think about going to the kitchen and getting an ice pack for my face.
And maybe a few fucking pierogis, too.
Howhad Annie’s murder gone from an unsolved homicide to wrapped up in two days—especiallywithoutan official autopsy report? Unless they’d rushed it through, but even then…
It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. I wanted to call Jack and talk to him, tell him about it…but he had work. AndIhad to go to my sister’s cremation tomorrow.
Why so fast? Why so private?
And most of all, why had my fatherhitme when I told him I’d given his contact details to the police?
CHAPTER32
JACK
I drove back home,left the Pinto, and took an Uber out to the Valley to pick up Miller’s car. I had a little time getting in the gate at the bottom of the drive—which was shut and locked today, I noted with approval—but at last Nate’s sleepy voice came over the intercom and buzzed me in.
When I got up to the house he met me at the front door wearing only a jock strap. “Hey,” he said forlornly. “Is Milly okay? He won’t return my calls.”
I gave him a clap on the shoulder that also allowed me to keep him at arm’s length, because he looked like he was going to try to come in for a hug. “Yeah, he’s okay,” I lied. “And I know he wants to talk to you,” I continued lying, “only there’s a lot of shit going on right now.”
“I bet there is,” Nate said, his eyes widening. “I can’tbelieveAnnie isdead. She was, like,sofamous!”
I fished Miller’s keys out of my pocket and zapped the car, which gave a beep. “Well, she’ll be immortal in Hollywood,” I said, and then wished I’d kept my cynicism to myself.
But Nate had taken me seriously. “You’re reallywise, Mr. JJ.” He bit his lip. “Tell Milly to call me, would you? Annie gave me some stuff to hold onto in exchange for some, uh, supplies. I feel bad about it now, even though shedidowe me.” His eyes widened again. “Omigod. She didn’t die from, uh…” He waved a helpless hand.
